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I went up to Oxford University last week to the ‘Buddhism and Science’ colloquium. It was a day of talks by a range of people including Alan Wallace and Mark Williams, and a half day consisting of a talk by a leading Wittgenstein scholar, Peter Hacker, plus two hours of general discussion. I couldn’t get to the first day because it was oversubscribed – although I read some of the papers on the web beforehand, but the organizers kindly let me come to the second day as I said to them I had been thinking I might contribute to the discussion, that I had been writing on that topic, and I proved it by forwarding the opening chapter of my book. I got there and was shocked at the size of the room. I had been expecting a hall with 300 people in it but it turned out to be a large classroom with 70 chairs. I felt a bit exposed as I sidled over to my seat but I needn’t have worried. Everyone I talked to was warm and approachable. The audience was a mixture of buddhists, buddhist scholars, scientists, and the curious. There was a contingent of ‘existentialist’ scientists from Paris, one of whom, Michel Bitbol, had succeeded Franscisco Varela as director at the Ecole Polytechnique (Varela died in 2001, after having been a driving force in creating the Mind and Life Institute conferences: the series of dialogues held annually between Buddhists and scientists that the Dalai Lama participates in. Varela had been taught meditation by Chogyam Trungpa.)

Prof. Denis Noble was the host and chair. He had delivered a paper called ‘Systems Biology and the concept of No-Self (anatman).’ In a way he is an opposite number to Richards Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion.) Instead of promoting the gene as a main driving force in biology, Denis takes a view more akin to the Buddhist truth of conditionality. Each ‘level’ of biology contributes its part to the whole so you cannot really say one level has a privileged place over another. His recent book is called ‘The Music of Life.' I enjoyed Peter Hacker’s talk, after which there was some discussion on it with him, which I didn’t join in. Then after a coffee break came a general discussion for almost two hours. Denis Noble brought in three topics from the day before: ethics, the notion of non-self, and another I can’t remember. We got going on ethics, and I thought ‘ Oh, I’ve got a theory on how ethics, Buddhism and science inter-relate.’ so I put my hand up and Denis said, “someone’s come in quite quickly here!” I had been thinking quite a lot around the area of technique compared with practice: that people today have ready access to buddhist techniques like mindfulness or buddhist ideas, like the Dalai Lama's emphasis on a secular ethics, but they often don't have the same kind of access to the pool of experience that is the Sangha that can help them sustain that practice. So I talked for a while about the Meghiya Sutta; outlining how the conditions for ethics are part of a ‘pyramid’ consisting of contact with experienced practitioners (kalyana mitrata), developing ethical sensitivity, talk about ethics, meditation and finally wisdom. This wasn't quite my theory on Buddhism, science and ethics, but in the moment that wasn't that clear in my mind, so I thought I had better not try to express it. Peter Hacker seemed to enjoy that contribution.

Then later we got onto the topic of anatman. Denis Noble said he had a personal question for the Buddhists in the audience. He had come across the doctrine of anatta (non-self) in Buddhism but he had also heard of the notion of a self mentioned. Could we clarify things for him? Vesna Wallace, Alan Wallace’s wife and the new chair of Buddhist Studies at Oxford, gave a comprehensive Buddhist account of anatta. Someone else, who seemed like a buddhist scholar, talked about the ‘a’ in anatta having more of a positive meaning than simply ‘not.’ The guy in front of me, who turned out to be Lance Cousins, said that the Buddha had not said very much about ‘the self’ but had only made statements like “the body is not the self.” I knew what he meant but I wasn’t sure this wouldn’t be confusing for non-Buddhists, so to clarify things I launched into my recent material on ‘mental objects.' I said that when ‘mental objects’ are associated with each other in the mind, they make up a person’s perspective, out of which that person acts. Dennis Noble replied “So is that what meditation is?” I said “Yes, sort of.” John Peacock, on the front row with Alan Wallace, Mark Williams and Vesna Wallace seemed interested in my explanation, as did Vesna. So these were my contributions to the debate. I enjoyed being able to contribute something at this level, as well as experience such a high level of intellect and interaction. I was pleased that my ideas held up in that company, and that what I said was appropriate. It felt like a significant event to participate in. At the end I was thanked for my contribution by the organizer and would be informed when the next colloquium takes place, so maybe I'll be going again sometime. The programme and the papers given at the colloquium are available on the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies website at http://www.ocbs.org/content/view/82/129/ There should also eventually appear an audio and video record of the proceedings on the ‘Voices from Oxford’ website.